


Cast Some Light.

by xerxezra



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, I WILL DIE FOR THESE TWO, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerxezra/pseuds/xerxezra
Summary: Simon catches Markus in a moment of peaceful solitude, longing for the chance to join him.Instead, he gets far more than he bargained for.





	Cast Some Light.

Markus had been their savior from the moment he arrived at Jerico. 

His compassionate wisdom and unparalleled charisma inadvertently forced him into leadership, and he took the role in stride. Never once did he falter, never once did he give in. Even at times when hope seemed bleak, Markus fought for their freedom at every turn, and had secured tenuous peace with the humans while staring down the barrel of a gun.

Simon had been in awe of him. 

During the revolution, it had been so natural for him to rely on Markus. To submit himself to the greater good, to sacrifice his life at a moment’s notice if the situation had ever called for it. 

Because Markus had been more than a man. He was an ideal, a representation of everybody’s dreams. 

It had been so easy. 

But now? Now, when Markus had renounced his role as leader? When there was little else to fight for, now that androids and humans were equals?

The boundaries between them had never been so thin.

Who were they, now that their roles were insignificant? 

It took time to adjust to the new dynamic. But Markus, adaptable as he’d ever been, fell back into his old self almost instantly. He never lost sight of who he was. The war never changed him, never turned him into a vile, spiteful mess that mirrored humanity’s hatred. 

In the early days, Simon was too scared to know the real Markus, lest he lose sight of the powerful figurehead he fiercely admired. 

And yet, when he’d catch Markus alone, lost in his thoughts or performing mundane tasks in peaceful solitude, Simon had never wanted to know someone as much as he did in those moments. 

One such moment presented itself today. 

His task was simple — find Markus, update him on the passage of new android legislation, and go on his merry way. 

Except when he finally found him, he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt the man. 

Markus sat beside an open window, canvas and easel propped up before him as he absentmindedly twirled a paintbrush, brow furrowed in concentration. The palette angled away from him was covered in shades of silver and blue, and Simon noted an endearing smear of paint streaked across his cheek. 

He shouldn’t creep in the hallway, peering over the door’s threshold and watching him like some kind of lunatic. But something held him back, some force that rendered him immobile as he helplessly looked on.

He didn’t know what Markus was painting, but with the light shining around him in golden hues as he painted in peaceful quietness, Simon imagined that _this_ was a painting in of itself, an intimate scene captured in the eyes of the beholder. 

“You can come in, you know,” Markus suddenly called out. “I don’t bite.” 

Simon jolted out of his reverie and flushed at having been caught. He entered the room in purposeful strides, steeling his nerves to deliver a quick report and pretend like none of this ever happened.

“I — I just wanted to tell you that the bill went through the Senate,” he shyly said, hovering awkwardly beside Markus as he eyed the painting.

Two hands crossed over each other with upturned palms dominated the entire canvas, heavy brush strokes creating crisscrossing patterns reminiscent of android skin. 

What did it mean?

“That’s great news,” Markus replied with a relieved sigh, and drew his attention away from his work to glance at Simon’s curious expression. “I’m not really sure where I’m going with this one, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You seem to paint hands a lot,” Simon innocently remarked, earning a sharp laugh. 

“Karl said the same thing to me recently. I find them interesting — so much can be conveyed through the human form.” 

“Those appear to belong to an android.”

“Yes,” Markus quietly said, turning back to the painting. “Maybe they are one in the same.” 

“Perhaps…” Simon trailed off, until the paint streak on Markus’s cheek came into view once more. “You have something on your face.”

What compelled him to reach out and swipe his thumb along the smear, he did not know. The startled expression that crossed Markus’s face sent his internal cooling system into overdrive, and in an effort to avoid uncomfortable silence, he quickly asked, “Why do you paint, Markus?”

Simon's question momentarily stumped him. “Why?” His eyes trailed over the canvas as he leaned back in his chair. “It’s…liberating. I used to question it myself, but once you have that brush in your hand, you realize how limitless self-expression can be.” 

“That sounds a little daunting.”

“It is,” he said with a nod. “And highly satisfying. I’ve watched Karl do it so many times that it comes naturally to me by now.”

No surprise there. Markus was astoundingly introspective, almost to the point of reveling in the assurance of his own mind. Not like Simon, who seemed to be in a constant state of inner turmoil lately. Especially when around a certain someone… 

“Do you want to try?” 

“Wh-what?” Simon stepped back hesitantly. “I’m not — I’m not so sure —“

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun,” Markus said as he rose from his chair, beckoning Simon to sit while he switched out the canvas for a clean one. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

Simon wordlessly opened his mouth, but the protests died off with Markus’s guiding hand on his shoulder. He waited patiently as the other man retrieved a second chair to settle in beside him, so close that their thighs touched with each subtle movement. 

The palette and paintbrush were diligently cleaned. Simon gingerly took them, biting his lip and wondering what he’d gotten himself into. 

“Don’t think too hard,” Markus said. “Just let your imagination run wild. _Show_ your audience what you’re feeling.” 

This was a bad idea. Simon had never painted before, never mind _expressing_ himself in such an abstract way. Yet when Markus looked at him with such unbridled determination and kind reassurance, he found himself putting paintbrush to canvas and letting his mind wander with each brushstroke. 

But what to show his audience?

_Who_ was his audience?

The answer was blindingly clear. 

Markus told him not to think, but his thoughts raced in all directions with the first swipe of the brush, a sharp line as definitive as a jawline, and next came the curling outline reminiscent of a kind smile, acrylics melting into a pool of sound and sight and touch and — 

— and suddenly he could see it in his mind’s eye, the image of him lost in a comforting embrace with his savior, the heat of a shuddering exhaled breath contrasting with the frigid air of Jericho, his wounds mercifully numb to pain, numb to the messages barraging his warning systems as he felt a whisper of static cross over his firewall — 

_Safe. You’re safe. You’re home, you’re here, you’re with me._

He’d gotten lost in that memory a million times, like synesthesia dragging his senses into the past with shocking clarity. And in the distant corner of his mind, still desperately trapped in the present, he hoped that he brought that moment to life in his painting, bared plainly for his audience to see.

Except — 

— except it looked like _garbage_. The linework was wobbly, the paint was entirely too sloppy and went out of margins, the colors were all _wrong_ , and by the end of it all, Simon was feeling bitterly nonplussed and embarrassed beyond all reason. 

He paused the brush mid stroke and sighed, dipping it back into the water with a resounding finality and placing the palette on the windowsill. Unable to meet Markus’s stare, Simon hung his head and closed his eyes, cursing the rush of heat blooming across his cheeks. “This was a mistake, Markus.”

“Hey.” Such a simple word, yet said so tenderly. It spanned the short period of silence that followed, beckoning Simon to look at him. And he did, by God he did, lulled into a mesmerized trance by those piercing heterochromatic eyes, and the moment passed as quick as it came when Markus placed a hand on his knee. “There’s no such thing as a mistake in art. This,” he nodded at the canvas, “Doesn’t mean any less than anything I’ve ever created."

Simon remained silent for a breadth of a second too soon, and shyly looked away once more. 

“What, uh…” Markus paused. “What _were_ you trying to show?” 

His tongue felt like lead in his mouth. “I…” 

_I wanted to show you how much you mean to me._

And if he couldn’t show it through art, then perhaps, another way.

Markus stilled as Simon’s fingers gently trailed over his hand, a touch so soft that it might not have even been there, until the instinctual urge to establish a connection shot sparks of energy between them, a rapid-fire pulse of binary that whispered — _please, let me in, let me show you, you’re safe with me too_ — and all too soon did their firewalls shatter, all too soon did they plunge into each other’s memories, the sensation of bittersweet longing leading them down a carefully assembled path of hidden emotions —

_— fear, as Markus called out his name, and the sensation of bullets tearing through his metal plating —_

_— loyalty, as he took one last look at Markus disappearing into the snowy night —_

_— warmth, as Markus hugged him, _touched_ him for the first time — _

_— and love —_

— Markus by the windowpane, illuminated by the soft glow of sunlight, with a secret smile meant for no one but himself, lost in thought, elegant fingers caressing a paintbrush, the wet shine of blue across freckled brown skin, he longed to be there, he wanted to be by his side, he wanted to be the canvas, he wanted — 

— he _wanted_ — 

The connection abruptly cut off, knocking them both back into reality.

Silence. Heavy, stifling, mind-numbingly terrifying silence, rapidly eroding Simon’s will like rust clawing at his biocomponents, except _no_ it was his own fear churning the gears into dizzying panic and _why did I do that why did I show him_ — 

He swiftly rose, nearly knocking the chair back in his haste to distance himself from the source his shame. But a firm grip wrapped itself around his wrist, and Markus was suddenly all too close to him again, so close he can probably _hear_ the damn whirring of Simon's thirium pump, feel the heat emanating from his body in an effort to dispel kinetic energy. 

But there was no going back now. Within mere seconds, something had changed between them.

Simon stared at his pitiful painting like a lifeline, reminiscing about the simplicity of an uncomplicated past, before the feeling of a smooth caress along the side of his face forced him to turn and meet Markus’s eyes and — oh, why was he looking at him so _tenderly_ — 

“Is that how you see me?” he quietly asked. 

“Yes,” Simon whispered. 

The confession hung in the air between them. It was silly, really, how his mind could only focus on how _close_ Markus was, until the feeling of the hand at his cheek moved to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, and he stood still under the weight of Markus’s stare before suddenly the distance between them was no more — 

Soft, _impossibly_ soft lips against his own, slow and sweet and curious with each fluttering caress. 

Simon felt his systems reboot from utter shock. 

_Don’t think too hard_ , a reminder echoed through his frozen processor. 

So he didn’t. 

His lips opened ever so slightly, leaning into the kiss with as much courage as he could muster. Inexperienced though he may be, the heady awareness of who was kissing him reinvigorated his spirit, and after a particularly sudden nip to his lower lip, Simon searched out Markus’s hand once more, twining their fingers together as he dipped his tongue into the other man’s mouth. 

And they were lost in each other again, slipping through the cracks of a fraying connection as Markus beckoned him into his mind, and he saw — he saw _himself_ —

_— the blue clarity of his wide eyes, so trusting and open and bright, only for him —_

_— the deep, murky blue of his blood, can’t lose him, can’t kill him can’t abandon him no North no —_

_— muddled, brown dirt, caked into his skin from fighting, still courageous, still by his side until the end —_

_— the golden tufts of hair framing his face, tousled, glowing from the sun, we’re free, finally free —_

_— the searing blue blush standing out against pale skin, enticingly rosy lips, eyes shimmering blue from unshed tears, you’re beautiful —_

They broke apart again, slowly this time, the connection easing them into a deepening kiss as their tongues entwined and they gripped each other like a lifeline, basking in the pleasure of it all.

Simon pulled back first, hovering a hairsbreadth away from Markus’s lips with closed eyes. It seemed almost too dangerous to look, as though the moment had never happened, as though he would open his eyes to a world where he had never kissed the love of his life. 

And yet he looked, and saw those lovely eyes looking right back at him. 

Somewhere along the way, his hands had latched onto the front of Markus’s shirt, and he in turn was enveloped in a firm embrace. He should have felt embarrassed, should have moved away as soon as he came to his senses, but with Markus smiling so happily at him…well. Propriety be damned. 

“Next time, I’ll have to teach you how to play the piano,” Markus randomly remarked, much to Simon’s confusion.

“Eager to make me look like a fool again?” he softly asked. 

Markus chuckled, leaning his forehead against his. “No, I just want a convenient excuse to do _this_ again,” he said, and pulled Simon in for another breathtaking kiss. 

He would gladly cater to the man’s whims if it meant more moments like this again.


End file.
